only dying makes us grow
by ChipsPlease
Summary: He doesn't look and he doesn't shoot - GaleKatniss, GaleJohanna


**Diclaimer: Not mine. Titles belong to e.**

_only _**d y i n g**_ makes _us_**grow**_

**the end**

she burns – crimson, smoke, ash - and he doesn't shoot

(-doesn't shoot when she asks.)

**i. any courage is a fear**

Haymitch is the one who asks if he's going back to Twelve.

(haymitch is dark and seam like he is. it's a shame they never got along, but it's not an insult.)

"I don't know," he says. Somewhere Katniss may be singing.

Haymitch gives him a look.

"They want you in Two, you know."

"I know."

His skin still feels like ash and coal and Twelve.

"You can't save her."

"…I know."

Somewhere Katniss may be singing. But she is not singing for him.

(haymitch is dark and seam like he is. the difference is that haymitch only asks questions that he knows the answer to.)

.

District Two is dead.

That's all he can think of when he arrives. It's dead and he was the one who killed it. How typical.

(it's not even a guilty thought. it's just a fact – the sky is blue, the earth is round, he blew up a mountain and destroyed a town.

so it is, so it is, what a shame.)

District Two is dead, but there are still some signs of life around the edges. Rebels that survived, the ones who worked in the quarries and the mines. Rebels who worked in the Nut, the ones who weren't rebels until they heard Katniss, were saved by the Mockingjay.

Yes, District Two is dead, but it is not buried. There is still hope, and a part of him wishes that Katniss could see it.

(it's the selfish part of him – the part of him who remembers that when he blew up a mountain she said he wasn't heartless.

not yet anyway. what a shame.)

.

As President Paylor restores government, Plutarch Heavensbee recreates District Two. And in doing so, District Two unintentionally becomes the seat of government.

How typical, he thinks, the way some things stay the same. And yet he doesn't leave, doesn't go back to his burnt home in Twelve.

He tells himself he is staying here to prevent them from making the same mistakes as Snow.

It's a nice reason, a good one.

He stays and Plutarch says "You have such a great presence on camera, did you know that?"

"Oh really?" he mumbles back and wants to add that he's not very convincing scripted.

(wants to, but doesn't. it's probably a lie anyway)

"Oh yes, yes," Plutarch says with his Capital accent and for a moment the Revolution never happened.

(but twelve is still smoldering with dead girls and mockingjay wings, so he nods _yes, yes_ with plutarch and he reminds himself of his nice reason, his good reason.

turns out he is fine scripted. what luck.)

.

Two weeks after moving to Two he sees Johanna Mason.

"Fancy seeing you here," she says, all teeth and angles and _fuck you_ in her grin.

(he almost wants to grin _fuck you _back, but that's never been his area of expertise. what a shame, what a shame.)

"Johanna," he replies, curt and professional.

Johanna's grin shatters into a laugh and she says "they trained you pretty good, didn't they, Soldier Hawthorne?" as she walks away, to enter another one of Plutarch's jobs.

It's meant to be an insult, he thinks. He isn't sure if he feels it.

(here's what to remember about this meeting:

1. she walks away first.

2. neither of them mention home.

maybe it's not that surprising.)

.

The next time he sees Johanna he is doing what Plutarch calls a 'press conference' and what everyone else calls propaganda.

(_peace treaties don't end wars_, plutarch explains, for a moment so crisp and cynical with his books on history and downfalls and _yes, yes, peace treaties don't end wars_, but anyone from the districts could have told you that without having read anything.)

She stands in the back while he was filming, and he avoids looking at her. He thinks she, with her sharp angles and _fuck you _grin, will just make him feel stupid.

(he already feels ashamed.)

.

This is the why:

"Thank you so much Mr. Hawthorne. You are a true hero of the war."

Applause, applause, applause.

_Bullshit_, he imagines her mouthing but doesn't look, doesn't look.

(his skin burns instead and the fire is half twelve and half two – _bullshit, bullshit, _he doesn't look and he doesn't shoot.)

.

And this is the how:

"You know what's scary, Soldier Hawthorne?"

No, no he doesn't.

(yes he does.)

"Right now we're the heroes. Isn't that fucking terrifying?"

Yes, yes it is.

(no it isn't.)

**the middle**

catnip, catnip, but you didn't shoot either

( - or one truth among fifty lies of _i'm sorry _that he doesn't decide to send)

**ii. truth can live with right or wrong**

He gets a letter from his mother three months after moving to Two. There is no mention of Katniss, but he expected that more than he expected the letter.

(last time he saw his mother she did not cry, but she hugged him and she felt so small and delicate and breakable.

then he remembered _vick_ and _rory _and _prim_, all burnt up little ashes, little angels and oh god, she is so much stronger. so much stronger, that she can still hold him, even though he gave them the torch because he couldn't stop himself from burning inside.)

There is no mention of Katniss, but there is a scribbled out line that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot decipher. What she writes instead is: _don't lose yourself there._

He doesn't respond to that part.

(but a part of him is still burning, still burning, and maybe his greatest folly isn't that he loses himself, but that he is far too true to himself.)

.

He and Johanna begin to frequent the same bar, a dingy little place because everything else reminds them too much of the Capitol (that's what you get for living in two), and they talk sometimes, before they find other beautiful people to share alcohol laced kisses with.

"But I never kiss them drunk," he tells her one time, urgently because this is important to establish.

Johanna laughs, teeth pointed and gleaming like fangs.

"Bullshit, Soldier Hawthorne, bullshit," she says, leaning in close and he wonders wildly for a moment what it would be like to kiss her. Painful, he suspects, because she seems like the type who would bite.

(because she seems like the type who would make it matter.)

.

Johanna gets sent by Plutarch to Twelve for a week. Plutarch doesn't even bother to ask him.

(and he curses plutarch a bit for that, for knowing he couldn't go.)

"What was it like," he asks her when she returns, maybe just a little bit desperately, just a little bit reverently.

She pauses and for a moment her angles soften and he wonders if she pities him, if she is trying to protect him from something. He wonders why she cares.

"Oh fuck, you're too pretty to kill yourself over that," she says, reaching a hand to cup one of his cheeks, her nails sharp and digging into his skin but not enough to draw blood and he marvels at her restraint.

.

Posy begins to write her own notes to him in his mother's letters, little anecdotes about life in Twelve, about the school that is going to be built, about the flowers that are growing this time of year.

She doesn't write about Katniss.

(but sometimes posy writes about the birds, and he likes to think she's really taking about her because _fuck, he isn't going to kill himself over it, _but he just needs to know. he just really needs to know.)

.

"Was it worth it?" he asks Johanna, in that dingy little bar because everything else is too Capitol and because maybe he had too much to drink which is unusual for a guy with his level of self-control.

(which is the problem, because when he does things, he knows the full consequence of what he is doing and that doesn't leave any place for regret.)

"Fuck, you tell me, it was your revolution Soldier."

_Not fair, not fair, _he wants to cry back, but he isn't a liar. It was his revolution, and Plutarch's revolution, and Haymitch's revolution.

(but not _johanna's, _or _finnick's, _or _peeta's, _and most definitely not _katniss', _those broken little players, little victors, little symbols.)

"It must have been," he says, because there is no place for regret, for apologies.

(because he called beetee once and asked if it was _their _bombs that were used and beetee said he didn't know, he didn't know, did it matter?

did it matter? beetee said, or was it katniss who asked?

or was it him?

he didn't know, he didn't know, did it matter?)

.

Plutarch sends him to Seven for a week. He doesn't even bother to ask Johanna.

(and maybe she curses plutarch for this too, for knowing that she wouldn't go.)

When he gets back, she doesn't ask him anything. Just looks at him, all angles but no grin, eyes dark, dark, and piercing.

"I don't have anything left there, you know, I don't," she says, maybe just a little more defiant than usual and he doesn't know if that makes her less broken or more.

"Is it better that way?" he asks, in spite of himself, because he doesn't regret.

(but sometimes he wonders.)

She laughs, not in the shattering way, but in the gasping for air way, the suffocating way.

"Oh fuck no, we're both screwed," she says and he laughs, even though it's not funny just sad.

.

This is the why:

"I don't know if I believe in Twelve anymore. I saw it burn. Things like that don't just come back."

She laughs, gasping, suffocating.

"Then why did you ask about it? Why do you need to know?"

He laughs, gasping, suffocating.

(_catnip, catnip, you didn't shoot either_ but maybe she doesn't exist to him anymore either, that's a shame, what a shame.)

.

And this is the how:

"I don't know if it's going to be depressing or ironic the day I call home Two before I think of Seven."

(but he went to seven and all he could see was johanna, johanna in the angles of the trees, johanna in the crispness of the sky, the darkness of the dirt.)

"Who says it can't be both?"

(who says it has to be either.)

**the beginning**

the first time he hears her sing it is while watching the games

(- and oh god, it is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and the capitol would never understand but he does, he does, he does)

**iii. tomorrow will not be too late**

It rains for a week, six months after he moves to Two. He doesn't see Johanna at all during that time.

Two days after the rain stops, he sees her at the bar again but she has no drink ordered. He sits beside her and doesn't order a drink either, just stares at her cheekbones and the darkness of her eyes and takes her hand softly, softly and wonders if she notices him there at all.

(and here's the thing: he was there on _that _mission and he remembers when they found her, remembers how she was drenched and beaten and then later remembers how she had failed that test because of all that fucking water.

and he takes her hand because he knows how useless _i'm sorry_ is, but he needs to show her he understands because really burning must not be that different from drowning, and he is always, always burning.

and hey, they're not dead yet. that's got to count for something.)

.

He doesn't hunt anymore, not in Two. There is no need.

(but sometimes he misses it, when he feels himself burning, burning but there's nothing left to torch, nothing left to ash.)

"As a kid, I used to carve wood a lot. I was pretty damn good at it too," Johanna says, one time.

(not in that dingy bar, but out in the open, out under the sky where he can see her hair, still short, curling under her ears, softening her edges and her angles and her bite.)

He doesn't ask why she stopped. The answer would be too obvious and he already understands.

(but he buys her some wood and loans her one of his pen-knifes and hopes and hopes that she can still make beautiful things.)

.

He hears them mention Katniss one time, Plutarch and his crew of propagandists. Hears them mention her in passing, and for a brief moment he is desperate, straining to hear more, to hear anything.

But then it passes and he thinks _it didn't hurt as much as it could._

(maybe it didn't hurt much at all.)

"Did you see _her_ when you went to Twelve?" he asks Johanna.

She gives him a look, scrutinizing and intense.

"Yes," she says and kisses him on the cheek, a kiss that spills over just a little onto the corner of his mouth.

(he remembers how he took her hand because he knew _i'm sorry _is useless and this is not really the answer, not really the full answer, but it's a start.)

.

"I don't think you're a killer, not really," Johanna says, her shot on the table not yet drunk.

"I never said I was," he says, which only makes her laugh, the shattering, wild one.

"Oh fuck Gale," she says and distractedly he thinks he likes the way she says his name, the way it rolls around on her tongue and comes off sharp on her teeth, "you're pretty screwed. But not a killer, I would know."

He remembers her Games, remembers the brightness of her ax and of the blood, and thinks _yes, yes, she would know._

(the fact is he still killed those workers in the nut, still as good as killed prim and rory and vick, but johanna knows this too, johanna knows this too.)

.

"What are you going to make?" he asks Johanna, watching fascinated as she whittles away on the wood, out in the sun, out in the light.

"Fuck, it's your wood, you tell me?" she replies, not looking at him with her eyes but with the corner of her mouth twitching upward, and he laughs _no, no, no._

That's not his story to tell, his artifact to carve.

(but he watches her work and thinks _but it'll be beautiful_ and that's good, right? that's a start, right?)

.

This is the why:

"_There's a birdie that likes to sing right outside our house. I think you'd like it," _Posy scrawls, handwriting loopish, and childish, and innocent.

He tucks the note away and doesn't respond, not right away, not for awhile.

(he's waiting until he can say _yes, yes, i'd like it, _and really, truly, mean it.)

.

And this is the how:

"That's a mockingjay, right?"

Yes, yes it is.

She looks at him sideways and intertwines her hands with his.

(_tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, _they seem to sing.

_tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, _he seems to think and it's not perfect, but it's closer.)

**A/N: Oh hai fanfiction, it's been a while! **


End file.
